# Required Reading (in other words, the gamble that may bore you to death)



## Shiny Grimer (Jul 24, 2008)

Summer homework. The Evil. _The Evil._ I don't mind reading, but reading a bad book isn't fun. Particularly when it interrupts the reading of a _good_ book. I've been assigned to read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Things Fall Apart'. I thought the latter would be great and the former terrible. It was the other way around.

TFA is _so boring_. Tribal life in Africa apparently consists of killing people, beating your wives, and planting yams. That's more or less up to where I read to. I have to write a chapter journal on this and then write a report on the similarities between the books. I know they both have something to do with race, hard work, and different cultures, but TFA is too boring for me to bother finding out other not-so-obvious points. Honestly, I hate writing about literature.

To Kill a Mockingbird is actually interesting and engaging. At the very least, different things occur throughout the book. The characters are interesting and don't show up for just one page/ get killed off before getting to know them (TFA is more or less a 'telling' book than a 'showing' book). In other words, TKaM is good, TFA is boring and disappointing.

I've also been required to read Kindred. It was interesting except that having to go back and analyze every chapter almost ruined it for me. I also had to read 'The View From Saturday', which was odd and some Shakespeare books which I understood. What are your experiences with forced reading?


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## Icalasari (Jul 24, 2008)

Usually very good.

I have yet to be forced to read a book that I did not like


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## Koji (Jul 24, 2008)

I had to read The Outsiders, which I hated, Hidden Talents, which I tolerated, but overall disliked, and Enders Game, the only novel study I actually enjoyed (hurr little boys being sent to destroy an alien race).


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Jul 24, 2008)

While I haven't ever had to do required summer reading, required reading in general is very unfun. The only books I can remember recently that I liked is The Power of One. I generally read very different books from what is required, which is lame.

I didn't like To Kill a Mockingbird, I recall it being very dry for me.

To be honest, I didn't really like Ender's Game either. Most likely because of a predosposition against sci-fi novels. Again, my tastes in books is vastly different.


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## Furretsu (Jul 24, 2008)

Koji said:


> I had to read The Outsiders, which I hated


you have no soul


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## Arylett Charnoa (Jul 24, 2008)

The books I've read so far haven't been too bad.

There was one called The Way to Rainy Mountain, which was more of a telling book than showing, so it was not really interesting. I mean, it wasn't totally boring either though, I could get through it just fine. 

And The Right Stuff, which is very awesome. It's about astronauts and pilots, the author attempts to explain why they can go into aircraft and risk their lives. I mean, it was very long and there were a lot of words on per page, but it was interesting, to say the least. And the author actually put voice into his writing, which was my favourite part.

The Great Gatsby, hmm, was pretty cool. 

This Boy's Life is a memoir about, guess what? A boy and his misadventures. It was so-so. The beginning was boring, the middle interesting (because he had an abusive stepfather and I found myself hating him and wondering how he would get away), and the end a bit of a let down. 

Currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird a second time. I read it the first time without being required to, because everybody kept telling me how much of a classic it was. There's quite a bit I've forgotten, but it's even more awesome than I remember it. My favourite characters are Scout and Boo Radley. (I'm at the part where they're having Tom Robinson's trial.)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was not really great. The old-fashioned writing really threw me off. But good thing it was only 30 pages long.

And I had to read this one book, Alas, Babylon in school. It was so good that I asked the teacher if I could buy it from her (the books were hers), she's so nice, she let me have the book free of charge. It's about nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States, how the USSR finally bombs the States. (Set during the Cold War, of course) The good thing about it though, is that it's really positive for that type of book. I thought I wasn't going to like it, since I usually hate books like that, but I did. The characters rebuild their lives. Though they aren't the same as before the bombing, they manage to survive. 

The only book I've hated that I was forced to read was Lord of the Flies. Terrible, terrible, terrible writing. I hated the writing style SO much. And I didn't like it also because it was so negative. I did find it horrifyingly interesting though, I was on the edge of my seat as I read. But the ending was such a disapointment. 

I've got others to read, but uh, I haven't read them yet. I've got to read The Scarlet Letter and a chapter from Centennial.

Mostly though, I either like everything I'm forced to read or am mildly interested in it. Which is a good thing, because I can get through most of that stuff relatively easily.


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## Noctowl (Jul 24, 2008)

Underground to Canada...and To kill a mockingbird. I don't mind though, we don't have many books here, and I do love cuddling up with a book when the net doesn't work. ^.^ I read Of mice and men, which my brother is forced to read. But that's only cuz I was curious. Those books are all ok to read, really.


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## opaltiger (Jul 24, 2008)

The Catcher in the Rye, The Stranger, and The Secret Sharer were all quite enjoyable. The others (The Big Sleep, Julius Caesar, Macbeth) at least weren't so terrible. I appear to have good luck with the literature we study, I don't know.


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Jul 24, 2008)

AuroraKing said:


> you have no soul


I am inclined to agree with you.


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## Flora (Jul 24, 2008)

I am in agreement with AuroraKing on The Outsiders.  :D

We had/have to read Night by Elie Wiesel (already taken care of thanks to Summer Enrichment), Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez (done) She Said Yes by Misty Bernall (awesome) and Chromosome 6 by Robin Cook (MAKE IT STOP!!!!).


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## Flareth (Jul 24, 2008)

This summer my required book is The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. It's sorta hard to understand.


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## Icalasari (Jul 24, 2008)

AuroraKing said:


> you have no soul


Ouch, kind of harsh. That is pretty much also saying that most of my school has no soul (The Outsiders was not very popular...)

I never had to read over the summer. Here are all the books I have been forced to read that I can remember. I liked every last one of them

Hatchet
The Outsiders
To Kill a Mockingbird
Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
Lord of the Flies


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## Flora (Jul 24, 2008)

Everybody in my class loved it, I think.  And only _half_ of my classmates were violence-obsessed jerks. :D


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## spaekle (Jul 24, 2008)

Koji said:


> I had to read The Outsiders, which I hated


I had to read that one year. I thought it was a pretty good book, but it's not one I particularly remember when I think about good books I've read. :D;



... said:


> TFA is _so boring_. Tribal life in Africa apparently consists of killing people, beating your wives, and planting yams. That's more or less up to where I read to.


Kinda reminds me of _Cry, The Beloved Country_. That one was just depressing.  :( 



Flareth said:


> This summer my required book is The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.


That was the school's drama production last year. I thought it was pretty good acted out, although they added some funny things of their own to cater to the people who didn't get what the actual play was about. It did involve them turning the butlers gay at the end, though. :B 



Icalasari said:


> Macbeth


... kicks ass. Probably my favorite reading unit of last year. :] 

Other ones I've had (some summer reading, some not) 

_A Separate Peace_ - Good book. Liked it.
_East of Eden_  - Had to read it this summer. Very long but quite good. 
_And Then There Were None_  - BWAHAHAHA great book. :D
_A Day No Pigs Would Die_ - *No.*
_The Coffin Quilt_ - *NO.*
_Across Five Aprils_ - *NOOOOOOO*
_Oedipus Rex_ - Yes.
_Ethan Frome_ - It painted an image in my head of a city where it's always winter, and light now flurries are always falling, and everyone wears black coats all the time, and the streets are cobblestone with gas lamps and the horses are all gray and no one ever really smiles. :| 
_Of Mice and Men_ - Great. I should read more by Steinbeck. 
"The Landlady" - Just a short story in our Literature book, but I've remembered it for this long. Awesome. <3 Although half my class didn't get what happened at the end. :\ 

That's all I can remember.


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Jul 24, 2008)

Icalasari said:


> Ouch, kind of harsh. That is pretty much also saying that most of my school has no soul (The Outsiders was not very popular...)


I recall at least three-quarters of my school at least finding it tolerable. (compared to other stuff they make us read.)

Some other things I have been required to read:

The Odyssey: Yes, yes, it's nice. But it's not my kind of read.
Of Mice and Men: I have to say, I rather like Steinbeck.
Animal Farm: I like Orwell, but this book doesn't cut it for me. 1984 please.
Fahrenheit 451: It's not too bad.

The short stories we read are pretty good, by contrast. I suppose I could appreciate these books better if they weren't required. I normally read more slowly than they expect us to, I suppose I'm just a leisurely reader.


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## Icalasari (Jul 24, 2008)

Oh, right, add Animal Farm to my list :D


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## surskitty (Aug 1, 2008)

turbler said:


> the outsiders... you mean" but dally, you kill people with heaters" that outsiders=hatred...kinda. It makes me:angry:-ish.


I have no idea what you just said.


I tend to mainly be assigned decent books and I don't remember what I liked that was required reading.  I do know that I was bored by To Kill a Mockingbird (seemed to have too many scenes that were HEY LET'S BASH YOU IN THE HEAD WITH SYMBOLISM and actually just seemed kind of long-winded), The Catcher in the Rye (mainly because Holden needs to _stop whining_), some really shitty book I had to read a few years ago whose title I cannot recall, The House on Mango Street (sometimes okay, sometimes not)....  Some other things.

I know I've had to read The Outsiders, Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, The Odyssey (although that's not a book: it's an epic poem)....  A bunch of other things, too, but I can never remember what I read for school without being prompted.


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## Keltena (Aug 1, 2008)

I have to read _A Lesson Before Dying_. My friend says it's boring, and my camp counselor says it's great, so... let's hope.

Last year I read _To Kill A Mockingbird_ (<3) and _Our Town_... I don't really remember the years before that too well.


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## Minish (Aug 1, 2008)

Most of the books I've been forced to read haven't been quite bad. Or maybe they have, and I just grew to like them. ^^'

Hmm... I guess the most recent would be _Animal Farm_. I liked it, but I'm not usually interested in books involving politics. Whether they involve talking pigs telling the story or not. xD


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## Blaziking the God General (Aug 1, 2008)

Heh, The Hobbit and Beowulf. The Hobbit = awesomeness. I'm enjoying it. I finished a shortened version of Beowulf, and it was pretty good. It's really odd though - nearly everyone I talked to about the book said that they never had to read it until they were finishing High School / in college. Weird.


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## Blastoise Fortooate (Aug 1, 2008)

I'm reading "Crispin, Cross of Lead". Not bad, but historical fiction isn't really my thing. Luckily, since I didn't sign up for Advanced Language Arts, I didn't have to read "Across Five Aprils", which I've collected from Altaria 88 is about potato farming _during the Civil War_. <(*n*)>


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## Zora of Termina (Aug 1, 2008)

The only ones that I can really remember are:

7th grade- _Tuck Everlasting:_ I can't even remember any of it except about a spring that made you immortal or something. It was OK though, from what I remember.

8th grade - _The Outsiders_, like most everyone else had to do at some point: It might be my love of violence talking, but I actually liked it a lot.

9th grade- _The House on Mango Street: _Hated it.
_Of Mice and Men:_ I rather enjoyed it, particularly the "Beans with ketchup" line at the beginning.
_To Kill a Mockingbird: _Struggled to keep my interest at certain points, but at others it had me gripped. Overall it was good though, so.
_Romeo & Juliet: _I liked it, yet I didn't. Although getting to read out lines like the script, with different people for a change instead of popcorn reading, was pretty fun. An inside joke stemmed from this when my friend was reading the lines for Paris and made him sound totally gay. That was hilarious.
_Antigone:_ Not significant enough to remember. My teacher was on a shakspeare push.

10th grade- _The Westing Game: _This was actually pretty good. I thought it was very well-written, although confusing at points.
_Money Hungry: _You've probably never heard of this, but it was about a girl obsessed with money who was living in a poor neighborhood. Although... Though, the odd thing about it was that one of the main characters was also named Zora, so when people would talk about the book it sometimes sounded like they were talking about me. >>
_Begging for Change:_ Sequel to the above.
_Speak:_ I actually have a drawing based on a scene in here. >>

And this isn't even counting the books that my 9th and 10th grade teacher would bring in for me to read during free time because she thought I'd be interested. And I usually was.

See the problem is, I usually like everything they assign me to read. Then again, the only requirement I have for books is that it must be able to hold my interest past the first few chapters.


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## Falthor (Aug 2, 2008)

Freshman Year:
_Kindred_, Octavia E. Butler
_Lord of the Flies_, William Golding
Book of preference that is on a certain list: _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_
_Gates of Fire_, Steven Pressfield
_Tides of War_, Steven Pressfield

Sophomore Year:
_1776_, David McCullough
_How to Read a Book_, Mortimer J. Adler
_Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation_, Joseph E. Ellis
_The Stranger_, Albert Camus
_Things Fall Apart_, Chinua Achebe
_The Catcher in the Rye_, J.D. Salinger

Junior Year:
_The Octopus_, Frank Norris
_The Killer Angels_, Michael Shaara
_The Last Full Measure_, Jeff Shaara
_Mythology_, Edith Hamilton
_The Gifts of the Jews_, Thomas Cahill
_Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution_, James McPherson
_Battle Cry of Freedom_, James McPherson
_Slaughterhouse-Five_, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
_Krik?  Krak!_, Edwidge Danticat
_The Red Badge of Courage_, Stephen Crane

And if you thought Junior Year was intense
Senior Year:
_The Maltese Falcon_, Dashiell Hammett
_Hamlet_, William Shakespeare
_Othello_, William Shakespeare
_Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee_, Dee Brown
_Catch-22_, Joseph Heller
_Pride and Prejudice_, Jane Austen
_Gulliver's Travels_, Jonathan Swift
_The Mayor of Casterbridge_, Thomas Hardy
_The Republic_, Plato
_A Doll's House_, Henrik Ibson
_Early Autumn_, Robert Parker
_A Clockwork Orange_, Anthony Burgess
_Beowulf_, Anonymous
_Ulysses_, James Joyce

Whew.  I can't believe I remembered all of them.


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## Icalasari (Aug 2, 2008)

Oh, right! Also read Tuck Everlasting and The Westing Game :3


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Aug 2, 2008)

I too had to read Romeo and Juliet. I didn't particularly like it except at certain bits, but I at least respect it as a work of literature.


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## Alexi (Aug 4, 2008)

I never did Summer Reading when I had it, so hah. XD

But required reading in school has been a mix.

In the seventh grade, I had to read _Animal Farm_, which I thought was cool, but as I knew nothing of the Russian Revolution, and my teacher really did not go into it, I didn't get that part until I reread it for fun in 9th grade. That's when I fell in love with it. <3

I read a book called _Night_ in 10th grade, and while it was a good story (an autobiography about a Jewish boy in a Nazi concentration camp), I found it BORING. 

And after that, I read _Much Ado About Nothing_ and _Lord of the Flies_. I had switched English classes then, and my second English teacher was amazing, and she made reading those books awesome. Also, the class was very intelligent, and the discussions we had were good.

Then last year, I had an English class that was centred around Forensics and Forensic research, so we didn't read boring classic books. :D We read one book with almost put me to sleep, called _The Lovely Bones,_ about some girl who was murdered, and her ghost is telling the story, and then we read _Catch Me If You Can,_ which I fell in love with. We read _Othello_, which my English teacher and my friends made amazing (Shakespearian Yaoi!). 

I can hardly wait for Senior Year. :D


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## Flora (Aug 4, 2008)

Zora of Termina said:


> 8th grade - _The Outsiders_, like most everyone else had to do at some point: It might be my love of violence talking, but I actually liked it a lot.
> 10th grade- _The Westing Game: _This was actually pretty good. I thought it was very well-written, although confusing at points.
> See the problem is, I usually like everything they assign me to read. Then again, the only requirement I have for books is that it must be able to hold my interest past the first few chapters.


Outsiders=yay

...My sis is only in 6th grade and SHE has to read _The Westing Game._

EDIT: Read Night in Summer Enrichment.  Sad and pretty boring. D:


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## Kratos Aurion (Aug 6, 2008)

Zora of Termina said:


> _Antigone:_ Not significant enough to remember. My teacher was on a shakspeare push.


What does your teacher being on a Shakespeare push have to do with _Antigone_? Sophocles wrote that, not Shakespeare.

Whether or not I like assigned reading is pretty hit-or-miss, really. I certainly don't have a problem with the prospect, bibliophile that I am (although I haven't been reading as much lately), but if you get a sucky book then you get a sucky book. I can say that I did enjoy _Cat's Cradle, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Things Fall Apart_ and uh _Don Quixote_; _The House on Mango Street, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn _(or whatever), _Dracula, Call of the Wild, The Pigman, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress_, _Their Eyes Were Watching God_ and _The Giver_ were decent; and I swear to god if I so much as look at _The Things They Carried, Jane Eyre_ or _The Pickup _(AAAARRRGH) ever again I will stab myself in the throat. That's about it.

I've also had to read a lot of short stories, none of which I remember very well which presumably means they weren't excellent/awful.


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## Flametail von Karma (Aug 17, 2008)

Well, I've never had to read (much less do anything else involving school) over the summer, but I've loved just about every book the school's had me read. Wait, no, that's not true. I didn't like this year's books very much because they were way under my reading level. Two and three years ago, however, it was much better. I loved Animal Farm, The Giver, The Messenger, Lord of the Flies, The Oustiders, Call of the Wild, White Fang (okay I read that one on my own this year but it was basically for school), and Fahrenheit 451. Those are books I'll never forget.


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## Dannichu (Aug 18, 2008)

Alexi said:


> We read one book with almost put me to sleep, called _The Lovely Bones,_ about some girl who was murdered, and her ghost is telling the story,


I adore that book <3 I love all of Alice Seabold's stuff. It's depressing as hell, but damn good.

Pre GCSE:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar X3
Harry Potter (1&2)
Romeo and Juliet
Gulliver's Travels
Animal Farm
Holes by Louis Sacher

GCSE: 

Macbeth
Twelfth Night
To Kill a Mockingbird (other books on the syllabus here were Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies, so I read those too)
Three monologues from Alan Bennet's Talking Heads
H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds
A ton of poetry by Seamus Heaney and Carol-Ann Duffy and some multicultural stuff

And from the A-level couse (which I didn't take (because I'm a moron), but I read the books on it so I could comment on them with my friends who did):

Pride and Prejudice
Cat on a Hot Tin Rood by Tenesee Williams
The Wife of Bath by Chaucer (Chaucer makes reading Shakespeare like the Very Hungry Caterpillar)
A ton of poems by Keats
Measure for Measure
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (ew ew ew)
A Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood

With the exception of P&P, the entire A-level EngLit course is about sex and death.


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## #1 bro (Aug 18, 2008)

In fourth grade (worst year of my life, except maybe fifth grade) we had the worst books EVER for required reading. :0   There was Owls In the Family, which is just as awful as it sounds and it was about a kid that adopted two owls. The writer seemed to think he was hilarious, because he would always describe these WACKY ANTICS! that the owls would do. It probably would have been vaguely funny on a film, but in a book... it was just stupid. :|    Then there was My Side of the Mountain, a book about a kid that runs away to live in the wilderness. It was completely ridiculous, the kid "befriended" a bunch of wild animals. UH HELLO I'M PRETTY SURE THAT DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Also, then his dad comes and finds where he's hiding out in the woods, and then - get this - _tells his son that he can keep living out in the woods if he wants_. No joke. The dad even visits like every month. Completely stupid. And last but not least, we had Second Bend In the River, which is a _love story_. Newsflash: ten year olds do not appreciate love stories. This chick fell in love with an Indian chief, and then at the end of the book she got married to some guy named George. also there were like no sex scenes wtf

The entire fourth grade curriculum really sucked, actually, we spent the entire time learning about Ohio. Yeah, we're totally going to need that information when about half of us go and move to a different state after we get out of college.


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## Flitterbie (Aug 19, 2008)

Those books I can remember:

Fourth grade: 
_The Whipping Boy_ - Don't really remember this one that well.

Fifth grade: 
_The Giver_ - <3 <3 <3 This book. In fact, I'm going to re-read it after I finish the book I'm reading right now.

Sixth grade:
_The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ - It was okay. Wasn't exactly memorable.

Eighth grade: 

_Night_ - Loved this book. Gone me into a bit of a Holocaust-obsession phase (In a not-creepy way).
_Lord of the Flies_ - KILL THE PIG, CUT HER THROAT. Loved this one too. Watching kids slip into madness and kill each other is more fun than you'd think.
_The Outsiders_ - Once again, loved it. Have a copy of this around here somewhere. And the movie. 
_A Midsummer Night's Dream_ Best Shakespeare I've read so far. Donkey-headed people are always fun.
_Antigone_ - All I really remember about this is that the titular character is the result of incest.
We also read a lot of Poe that year. Most of it was good.

Freshman year:
_Of Mice and Men_ - Once again, loved it. Can't wait to read _Grapes of Wrath_ this year if it's even half as good as this.
_Our Town_ - It was okay. Don't remember it well.
_Romeo and Juliet_ - Almost too sad of an ending, to the point of it being cheesy. Almost.
_To Kill a Mockingbird_ - We spent a quarter of the school year on this, and with good reason. It was really, really good.

Sophmore year:
_A Separate Peace_ - All I really remember is my friends consistentally calling Gene and Finny gay. I never really picked up on it, and I think my friends just didn't like it.
_Macbeth_ - It was okay. Pretty interesting loophole in that prophecy.
Various King Arthur legends - I liked these stories. They were fun. 

And that's all I can recall.


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## Lady Grimdour (Aug 19, 2008)

Every required reading I've done is more boring than OAP wrestling. The books were good, it's just everything else.

_Of Mice and Men_ is interesting, but not when every single thing has to have meaning. SHOES DON'T HAVE MEANING. A FUCKING FEATHER ON A TOE DOESN'T HAVE MEANING. IT'S A FEATHER. NOT SOME DESIRE TO FLIRT WITH EVERYONE. GOD.

Now I loved _Macbeth_, but rereading every single line in the book "for hidden meanings" can make any book torture.

I've read _The Lovely Bones_ and I absolutely fell for it. But knowing the style of teaching over here, even *that's* gonna be mind-numbing.


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## Involuntary Twitch (Aug 21, 2008)

This year is my first year having summer reading, and it's been at least partially good. I've also got a whole lot of books to choose from for the ELA reading, and technically I could just cop-out because I'd already read one of them (Ender's Game) prior to recieving the list. As a whole, the books are about racism, which is bad but sort of meh-ish when you've got a whole stack of books on the topic.

...But there were two required books for History, so I read them.
Siddhartha- It was a struggle because the people don't follow logical thought, but when I finished it I felt somewhat enlightened. But then I realized that everyone in school will have read it too, which took the special feeling away somewhat.
Does my head look big in this?- Was AWESOME. Okay, okay, so this muslim girl decides to weat a hajib and faces some racism. There's also _high school drama_ and _crushes_ and _kissing scenes_. I got so emotional. ;D "No, Amal! Just kiss him! I don't care if it's against your religion!"

And I think I'll read Joy Luck Club so I'm not on awkward footing since it's been so long since I read Ender's Game. (Basically, we can read any number of the books on the list, min one.)


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## Harley Quinn (Aug 28, 2008)

This year, I read The Chosen. I was relieved when my English teacher told me that I would never read a more boring book again in my life.


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## Flora (Aug 29, 2008)

_Chromosome Six_ got better. _Everything_ gets better when people get kidnapped by monkeys.

I have to read _The Pearl_ for English class.  AGAIN. -.-

I also have to read _Animal Farm,_ which, by your responses to it, I will take as a good book.


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